New features in MySql 5.1

There are several new features added to MySql 5.1 .

Some important items are given below :

1. Table partitioning and sub-portioning as well .
2. FAST execution for ALTER TABLE .
3. Task Scheduler - CREATE EVENT Statement to add task , a good use for DB maintenance activities

Quick InnoDB Tuning Guide

InnoDB performance depends on a list of things including your hard drive speed and raid controller performance .

In brief there are some major tuning directives , which can improve InnoDB performance.

1. innodb_log_flush_at_trx_commit - If you set it to 0 , InnoDB does not flush each commit to Disk rather it would flush after ter one second , If you are running non financial site and can afford to loss 1-2 seconds data loss incase of failure , this trick will work good

2. innodb_flush_method -- the default method work well for innodb

3. Check if the version of mysql is tested against your operating system.

Also you need to set
innodb_buffer_pool_size
innodb_additional_mem_pool_size
innodb_thread_concurrency
innodb_log_file_size
innodb_log_buffer_size
innodb_flush_log_at_trx_commit
innodb_file_per_table

options as per your database server hardware environment and need to tune it perfectly for optimize innodb performance.

Please don't tests these options on your production environment , unless you are 100% sure about your changes and after effects